


To rebuild a bridge

by ClaraCivry (Kat_Of_Dresden)



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Angst, FIX THEM, Feelings Realization, Fever, Hurt/Comfort, I need them to fix things, Internal Conflict, Major Illness, Rip Needs A HUg, RipFic, Sick Character, Sickfic, Whump, post 3x05, shameless Rip whump
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-14
Updated: 2018-01-18
Packaged: 2019-03-04 13:02:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13365249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kat_Of_Dresden/pseuds/ClaraCivry
Summary: Sara is thrown in jail cell of the time Bureau.Rip is there, but in very bad shape.Rip whump and reunions.





	1. Chapter 1

They kind of knew that at some point, the Bureau was going to think that what they were doing was wrong and needed to be stopped, and then the Legends would be stopped and apprehended. After their last mess, they had eluded them for a fairly long time, but now Sara found herself prisoner, trying to find a weakness in the bars but finding none. There was only a small washroom and a mattress with a pillow and some blankets on her corner of the cell.

There was someone else in the cell with her, but they hadn't made a sound since she'd been dumped there, hidden under their own blankets. She screamed and she kicked and she punched the walls when she realised there was no way out. It made her mad, they still had things to do, so many of them and this was completely not fair. So they had broken some rules, yeah, made a little mess, but it was them trying to fix a bigger, worse mess, so it shouldn't be so bad.

A calculated risk, one might say a small damage done to undo a bigger evil. Something like that. Thing was, when they started off they made a lot of messes like that one, and no one ever stopped them. They tried, but they never spent too long behind bars or in danger. They kept moving, kept getting away. Maybe it helped that they used to travel with a rogue. She was a good at those things too, but didn't know the timeline and its details as their former Captain did.

She sank on a corner, with her hands above her eyes. Now the others were going to come looking for her and possibly get arrested too, or get in a bigger trouble, give the Bureau even more reason to imprison them or do something even worse to protect reality. And she was powerless to help them, to do anything. A useless Captain.

Maybe the other person could give her some info about the guards, the cell and in general anything that could help her devise an escape plan. If this person had been jailed by the same people as her maybe it could an ally, someone useful in her escape and after. Maybe they knew these people's weak spots, maybe they had only needed someone else to back them to get out...

“Hey! Hey you, under the blankets, come on...”

A blondish head emerged from the corner. It took her a moment to realise (he was so changed, so...worn, so ill, so terribly different from the smug idiot she remembered.

“Rip?”

“Now that you know it's me, will you let me sleep? I assume you'll want nothing to do with me.”

Sara was trying to find her anger, the one she felt in London and after, the one that led her to sell him to the Bureau, she really was, but wasn't finding it. Maybe she couldn't be angry at someone who looked so terribly... bad. Prison had really done a number on Rip, who looked nothing like the shiny Bureau director he had been.

His hair was longer than she remembered, messy and unruly, his beard too had grown, and he seemed to be hiding his face under all that hair. His eyes were bloodshot and too bright, she didn't know if it was unshed tears or something else, but they felt wrong. There were angry red gashes in his hands and what she could see of his neck, probably infected. The rest of him was covered in blankets, but probably wasn't looking much better.

And Sara was conflicted. Part of her (the main, louder part) told herself that he probably deserved being sick in a cell. It was the price he paid for betraying everyone he had ever associated with. Just desserts. And nothing that should she should concern herself with. If he hadn't done what he did, he wouldn't have found himself in this place, in this situation. He made his bed, he was lying on it. He bought himself that pain. He.....

But no expression could quiet the other part of her, that was screaming that this man was in pain, because she had put him in this place. He was sick and gaunt, and no matter what he had done, he was still, in some twisted way, in some corner of her mind he was still part of her team, part of her crew. In a small corner of her mind she felt that she had betrayed him as much as he had betrayed them, and wanted to reach out, do something to fix it.

But no. She had to be strong, ignore the guy, ignore those shining big eyes she used to know so well. Rip couldn't be an ally or a partner in her escape, he deserved to be there, and she wasn't going to help him after what he had done. She looked away in anger, and didn't speak to him for hours, wallowing in her own resentment, until she angrily fell asleep.

She awoke to a metallic sound of the floor. Two trays of breakfast, that slid through a tiny opening on the lower part.

Good, there was something she wanted to say.

“I want a different cell.”

The guard, a young woman with a round face, looked at her funnily.

“They all look the same.”

“I don't want to be with him.”

She said, pointing at the figure under the blankets. He hadn't made much noise since last night, just some odd wheezing and some thrashing around. Probably a nightmare. Not that she cared.

“Ah, don't worry, they put you here because you'll probably be alone shortly. He'sletting himself die.”

“He's WHAT?”

The guard didn't seem to think it was all that surprising, apparently. She was oddly cheerful – maybe simply glad to have somebody new to talk to.

“Yup. Started not eating, then refusing medical treatment. We try to be humane, you know, so if being cured is like torture for you, we try not to do it. But.... yeah. He hasn't said so, but we think that, you know, he's doing so he can die. So you can probably eat his breakfast, we are required to serve it, just in case he stops, but he has only drank some water in the last week, so, double ration for you! It is a good cell, I wouldn't change it. And he doesn't, like complain much or anything.”

Sara looked at the bundle of blankets that she knew contained her former Captain, former team mate, former... friend? She didn't know if they ever made it to friends. There had been so many secrets, so many half truths, On both sides.

“It's kind of a pity, isn't it?” The guard continued, chatty. “The guy founded this place and now he's dying trapped in here. Sad. Also, he used to be kind of handsome. Now he just looks bad. Do tell us when he dies, ok?”

And so she left, and Sara was left with two breakfasts and a heavy heart.

She had seen many people die, and it was never pleasant, no matter who they were. And Rip was someone that had meant a lot to her, even if they hadn't ended up in the best terms. He didn't always make the best choices, but he always apologised after he screwed things up, and knew when he was wrong. He never pretended to be better than anyone, and he always had good reasons for the things he did.

Maybe they should have listened to him, before throwing him on a cell to die. The fact that the others weren't here for her yet meant that this was probably a ver fortified, hard-to-access prison. Something in which you entered but didn't get out. She didn't like this.

After a couple of days eating both her and Rip's food and wondering where the hell where the others, she decided to do something for herself. After experiencing ome frustration with the bar, the floor of the cell and the opening slot for the food, she decided to consult the other ocupant of the cell, waking him up.

“Rip! Come on, wake up.”

She slapped his face, and found that he had a very high fever.

“You're burning up.”

“Who....? Mother...?”

“No, Rip, it's me, Sara.”

Rip's eyes were closing again. Sara feared that this might the last time they were open.

“Hey, don't check out on me, ok?”

She held his head, put one of it pillows under it, and absentmindedly rubbed one of his burning cheeks.

This was wrong. This was never what she wanted.

“Rip, hey, stay with me, all right?”

She wet a broken piece of her shirt in water and put it on his forehead, hoping to have him back for a moment.

“His glassy eyes seemed to focus on her for a moment.

“Hey, can you hear me?”

His eyes brow shot up quizzically.

“Mission?” He mumbled.

“Yes, yes, mission. What can you tell me that may be helpful? How can we get out of here?”

“Guards.... have opening devices... If prisoner... choking, dying... they open cell...”

Why hadn't she thought of that! Of course! And when the guard came to help them, haha, a couple of moves to knock it out and then it would be freedom.

“Dinner guard. Others... won't believe...”

“And I could take her clothes and leave! Why didn't you do it?”

There was a melancholy smile in his eyes.

“Nobody is waiting for me out there.”

And then Sara's heart broke into a million pieces. Rip always had a self loathing side to him, always carried a lot of guilt, a lot of blame that wasn't necessarily his. And then when she sold him out to his own corporation... That couldn't have helped.

So their trust had been broken, and bad choices were made. But he would have given them another chance, but have stayed with them (after lecturing them, and complaining about how they were a disaster). The least she could do for him was give him this one more chance. If he was going to die, it should be fighting, not like this.

Things were according to plan. It was night and there had been some emergency, so there was very few people around to notice this unknown blonde guard who was transporting an agent that had been hurt on an assignment.

It had been seven days since they last saw their Captain when Gideon found a sign of Sara Lance. They found her next to a lake, her eyes wild, tired, hurt. There was a familiar looking figure in her arms, unconscious, but alive.

“He's coming back with us.” She said.

And Rip Hunter went back to the Waverider, after so long.

Back to his old team, to his old home.

If only he'd been awake to see it.

 


	2. Chapter 2

The others didn't expect this.

Sure, they had known that if they couldn't find Sara she would end up finding them and kicking the asses of everyone in the prison, but they had never expected her to come with company. And the person that she was carrying, although very different from the last time they saw him....

“Is that Rip?” Jax asked, confused, full of resentment and something else that he couldn't identify. Pity? Sadness? Who knew.

Sara nodded, while walking to medbay, hoping not to run into the whole crew while she got there. Jax decided to walk with them.

“Why did you bring him here? You put him in jail and you're getting him out?”

“I wouldn't have made it out without his help. I couldn't just leave him there to die.”

“It could be a trick, to get inside our ship again.”

And then Ray was in front of them.

“Is that....?”

“Yes, I brought him back, all right? Maybe it wasn't the best decision, but I couldn't just leave him there, looking like this, after he'd told me the way out... I just couldn't!”

“Why does he look like that?” Ray asked, more shocked than anything else. “Isn't there an infirmary in prison? Were they....”

“I don't know. The guards seemed to think that he was letting himself die, said that he had refused treatment. Maybe they were hurting him for information, maybe there was no medical help, maybe he really was hoping to die. I don't know, ok? I just know that he was with me those five days in the cell and all he did was shiver and have nightmares. Just take a look at him, Jax! Even if he wanted to trick us and spy on what we're doing I think he would have to be conscious for it.”

Ray simply nodded.

“Yeah, I would worry about him but I guess that in his current condition he can't do much damage.”

“Letting himself die does sound like something Rip would do.” Mick said behind them, blunt as usual. “I still remember how happy he was when he asked me to shoot him. Brainwash or not, he has some serious head issues.”

Sara finally put him in one of the beds in the medbay, hoping that Gideon would be able to fix something, looking at the screens. Rip looked even worse under the harsh lights of the medbay, his injuries and his pallor more prominent. The others were talking in hushed voices outside, but Sara didn't care. She knew that what she'd done could cause problems, she was the first that had wanted Rip out of their lives.

But now... She had always been so caught up on her anger and suspicion that she had never stopped to think about the tragedy that Rip was. It was his own fault, in part, for always being so secretive. But the truth was that Rip had lost everything that had meant something to him, and that he never let anyone see he was hurting. But she had known, somewhere in the back of her head she had known, she just didn't care.

The minutes as Gideon did the necessary ministrations passed slowly.

Sara went back to her quarters, showered and tried to go back to confront the others, tell them about her days in prison, ask them about what they had been doing, if there was anything pending... And she did, but her mind was not really in it. They had decided to lay low until they got a new lead in the temporal zone, and after dinner Sara went back to medbay.

First, she just stood on the doorway, looking at him.

“Gideon, why does he still look so bad? Couldn't you fix him?”

“The Cap-” Gideon caught herself in the mistake, and stopped. It simply had been too many years with Rip as Captain, sometimes she slipped. “Mr. Hunter has sever sepsis and early stages of malnutrition, apart from a fever which seems immune to all my wide range of antipyretics. It will take days for his recovery, if he does indeed recover.”

“If?”

“Based on my calculations, there's only about a 30% chance of survival.”

“Why? You have all the most modern technology, you have medical tools that couldn't even dream of...”

“I have many tools to fix the body, indeed, Miss Lance, but sadly I cannot fix the mind yet. The mind has a remarkable power, and can affect everything else, overpower. If a person has given up and does not want to recover, there is only so much my medical tools can do.”

“So he really was letting himself die.” Sara whispered, uneasy. Maybe she should have done something more, convinced him to eat something. She had a feeling that he wouldn't have given up on her so easy, on any of them. Suddenly she felt dirty.

“How long has it been since he last ate, Gideon, can you tell me that?”

“Between twelve and fifteen days, Captain Lance.”

Sara punched a wall. She had put him there, there to rot, there alone with his raging depression and obscenely self-deprecating nature.

“I betrayed you like you did us, didn't I, Rip? I took you ship, your home, even your freedom, and thought myself so much better than you. I....Just.... find it in you and wake up, will you?”

Her limbs seemed to be made of lead and her hand were shaking, the knuckles on her fist bloody from when she'd punch a wall. When she got out (that room was eating her, and not doing its job, why did they have a medical room if it couldn't fix people??) Mick and Jax were out, looking angry and determined.

She stopped them before they got a chance to speak.

“Just before you tell me how this is a terrible idea, and that he shouldn't be here, now that Rip has a 70% chance of dying. Probably won't wake up again, so, no need to worry.” She said, with more than a little venom in her words.

Nobody slept much that day, except the newcomers. The others were considering, thinking. Whatever the way they had ended, they had lived a lot of good things thanks to Rip. He had chosen them for adventures through time and space beyond their wildest dream, no matter what his motivations had been. He'd done things wrong, lied, broke the trust. But hadn't they done the same and worst things before they were recruited? None of them were saints, but they still had each other, and a ship they could call home.

At different points of the night, Sara, Ray, Jax and Mick all reached the same conclusion: they had to make everything in their power to make Rip survive this, and give him a chance to fix this. Maybe he'd gone wrong because he lost them, lost Gideon and the place he'd called home for a big part of his life, maybe being replaced so easily had hurt so much that to avoid thinking about he had overfixated on Mallus and those missions.

Mick had been right when he'd said that Rip had some serious head issues, and their treatment of him and probably only contributed to them. And they had just abandoned him on a cell, where he had starved himself.

When Sara “woke up” (got up from bed after a sleepless night), she went to medbay straightaway, to make sure that their guest was still breathing. It turned out that he wasn't alone.

“Well, give him antidepressants then, if that's the problem!” Ray was screaming into the air, presumably to Gideon.

“There's a 92% probability of a harmful interaction with the antibiotics he's taken, which, in his extremely delicate condition, would cause death.”

“Fine! I'll find a solution on my own!” Ray was angry. He didn't want to fix this so bad, didn't want to see someone else die, didn't want to make a effort for somebody he felt so conflicted about. He wanted to help, as always, but.... Feelings made everything more complicated, his won and Rip's, making his recovery so much more complicated.

Maybe if they had been there for him more, it wouldn't have come down to this. Maybe if after he left, one, just one of them sought him out, asked him to come back, told him that the Waverider wasn't the same without him this absolutely messed up situation wouldn't be happening.

He nodded at Sara and left, determined to find a way to save him. He didn't before, but he wasn't going to fail the man now, like the Bureau had, like the time masters had, like the whole universe had, making him a starving orphan that was taken by a fairly evil organisation and only giving him a family for him to lose him.

No. He would fix this.

Sara half smiled at Ray's anger and resolve. She knew where it was coming from, and she was glad that they were on the same page.

And then....

Movement. A soft sigh.

“Rip?”

She was by his bedside in seconds.

“.....Who?”

“It's me, Sara. I brought you back to the Waverider.”

He frowned, not understanding.

“I had to, you were dying. You still are.”

Rip's eyes were unfocused, but she thought she understood him. Suddenly there was a pale too thin hand on her cheek. He was looking at her as if he could see her very soul, and Sara felt she couldn't breathe.

“Gideon needs you to want to be cured to fix you, all right? Your stupid self loathing is getting in the way of fixing you – always a bother. So gather any strength you have left and stop being a bother and – just – want to live.”

“...you brought me back.”

“And don't say that you have nothing because we both know that's not true anymore. I don't know about the others, and it's taking me a week of watching you die and replaying our greatest moments in my head, but dammit, I want to be there for you.”

She took Rip's hand on hers, and looked him in the eye.

“Like you were there for me when my sister died. You said that I was one of the strongest people you knew, well, now I need you to be strong.”

“You never needed me.” Rip whispered. “Better off... without...”

“Well, maybe I don't want better. Maybe I'm tired of better.”

“I ruin everything.... And I can't hurt you anymore... It isn't worth having me around... you know...”

“NO! It was wrong of us to think like that, but we can fix it. I just need you to live, Rip, survive this, give us a chance to make amends. Give yourself a chance. Hang on, stay with us.”

Rip eyes went unfocused and his back arched, his eyes squeezing shut.

Sara held him, put a cool hand on his still burning forehead, whispered comforting word his dad had told her when she was sick.

“It hurts.” Rip mumbled, and then he he passed out again.

Sara tried to wake him again, but couldn't.

Then she screamed.

 


	3. Chapter 3

Ray was drinking coffee while researching sepsis and persistent fever and its possible effects and feeling utterly and completely useless. Everything said that after administering the pertinent antibiotics and taking a close look at the evolution, there was nothing to be done. Any other chemicals could disrupt the natural evolution, so nothing to be done.

Only leaving him the patient to be cured was not working, because he was only getting worse. His oxygen levels were decreasing slowly but steadily, and if they kept like that he would soon stop breathing, and they would need to add more from the outside. They wouldn't need to intubate thanks to Gideon's modern medical technology, but it seemed that no even her could do much to bring back Rip from his own burning hell.

It was funny, because for a while Ray thought he wouldn't mind Rip dying. He wasn't a generally mean or hostile person, but the climate of disappointment and bitterness against their former Captain kind of rubbed off on him. After a while, he didn't even really remember why they hated him so much, they just did that was that. He broke their trust, and could never be part of the Legends again.

He might as well be dead if he wasn't going to help them, if he was just getting in their way and causing trouble the whole time. This was in theory.

Really, it felt wrong. They had done a lot of bad stuff before and since they got together, and they always found a way to move past it, forgive each other, be strong for and with each other. And Rip did what he did, and Ray thought that it was just him gone a bit... wrong without them, but then Sara did practically the same to him, and dammit, they were supposed to be better than that.

And there was always a little voice at the back of his head that felt that Sara didn't realise how much Rip had lost because of them. He'd lost the ship that had been his home for many years, he'd lost his team being painfully made aware that nobody needed him or wanted him there (the team he had selected himself to travel with him – and he left and they didn't care) and he'd lost Gideon too, who had been nearly his only friend through all his time of time travelling on his own.

Basically, Rip had been an orphan that lost everything he cared about: his family, his ship, the very few friends he'd managed to make, his freedom... If you thought about it, it was kind of logical that he would go overboard with this new mission: fighting threats was really the only thing he had left, that gave his life meaning. But now the very same institution he had created to fight foes had put him in prison.

“I kind of get why you wouldn't want to wake up.” Ray said, to the still figure in the medbay bed. “What do you have to wake up for? You probably still think that you're in prison, and that you have nobody with you and nothing to do except think about your mistakes. That sucks.”

It really did suck. Being alone could drive you near crazy, and Ray knew that. It screwed all you were, all you used to be. And one could be alone while surrounded by people, too, if those people didn't care, didn't want to care. It could hurt even more than actual solitude.

“I want to be angry with you, you know, but I.... it's difficult. Maybe you didn't go about... you know, your mission the right way, and you hurt us, but still... We turned on you, too. We've all made mistakes, we've all lost people. And I'm thinking about how you got us back in 1958, how you fought so hard to get Sara back... and she put you in prison. I...I want to fix things, but I know that I can't, and I understand what I can't and I understand why you're like this, I truly do, and it's... frustrating. I feel powerless, and I hate that.”

Rip looked much different than the last time they saw him. Gone were the elegant suits and the neatly cut hair, gone was the flamboyance and style from earlier days. Now he just looked bony and pale, like some random homeless man in a soup kitchen.

“I heard that talking to people while in comas can be helpful, so you'll have to endure me for a little while longer, ok? I don't know if I can be around the others right now, anyways, the air... is strange since Sara got back. And you, but you shouldn't worry about it. You worry about fixing yourself, yeah? Like this one time, I was fixing one of my....”

Sometimes, ideas came to Ray while he was speaking. Not necessarily connected with what he was saying, but sometimes while his mind was busy saying something something in the back of his mind clicked and new ideas came. He needed to fix this somehow, he had four phDs for god's sake.

At some point Rip stopped breathing and needed more oxygen. Things were going downhill fast and Ray was not getting any brilliant thoughts. But this was always happened, wasn't it? They were able to bring Sara back from the league and from death, but when it was Rip who was in danger... He temporally electrocuted himself. He was tortured by the Legion and used to hurt people he cared about. And Ray felt they only went for him because of the spear.

Out of ideas, Ray simply asked Gideon to leave some music on, anything and everything that she knew the Captain liked. He'd had enough of having things he didn't like in his lifetime, and maybe this would be a way for any side of Rip that was left to know that he wasn't left to die in a cell anymore, that he was back home.

Not much seemed to change, as some sad songwriter with a guitar started playing.

“I wish I could do more.”

For three days and three nights, there was music, there was people talking to him (mostly Ray, but occasionally Sara and once even Jax) and there was something that changed. The air of violence was gone, replaced by a joy and hope they were trying to transmit, hoping against hope that it would be help.

On the fourth day, there was movement.

It took him a while to understand that there was someone smiling at him, squeezing his hand.

It took him a while to understand that prison was gone.

It took him very long to realise that there was music, that he was home.

“… _.a rare, rare find_  
 _A troubled cure_  
 _For a troubled mind”_

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And time will tell you  
> To stay by my side  
> To keep on trying  
> ‘til theres no more to hide  
> So leave the ways that are making you be  
> What you really don’t want to be  
> Leave the ways that are making you love  
> What you really don’t want to love- Nick Drake, Time has told me
> 
> Could there be a song more perfect for them?? 
> 
> Anyways sorry for the shittiness and how little has happened. Hope you enjoyed regardless.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you liked! 
> 
> Thanks for reading! 
> 
> Feedback gives me life :)


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